Chapter 227: Of course, what the angels saw were all posed by Guo Xingye
Zhu Shuren has already carried out the promotion of new agricultural production methods and the confirmation of land rights twice in Huguang and Sichuan.
Therefore, if we replicate it again in Hanzhong, there will be no difficulty in the system at all. We can directly transfer mature experience and use it.
When it comes to specific implementation, the difficulties are also mainly concentrated in the fact that people's sentiments are different in different regions, and people's resistance needs to be resolved in a targeted manner.
Even though it is still the late Ming Dynasty, the folk customs in various places are already somewhat close to those of later generations——
Southerners are more adventurous and more receptive to new things. Northerners are a little more simple and conservative, but they are also more afraid of the government. Even if they don't understand, they can rely on force to implement new things, unless they can't stand it anymore and directly rebel.
Fortunately, Hanzhong is now isolated from the world and has no direct contact with other areas controlled by the Ming Dynasty. Even if Zhu Shuren acts arbitrarily as the local emperor here, no one can sue him for a year and a half - except those who want to sue.
He had the ability to penetrate directly through Li Zicheng's ruling area in Guanzhong and go to Beijing to complain to Chongzhen.
From mid-June, Zhu Shuren arrived in Nanzheng and began to deploy the civil affairs work in Hanzhong. By the beginning of August, in just one and a half months, both the common people and the gentry were sorted out.
The government has promised that anyone who switches to planting corn and potatoes this year will be exempted from taxes that year. Therefore, even if the people do not know these crops and are worried about the harvest, they can barely overcome their fear and switch to planting.
In order to speed up the promotion, Zhu Shuren used both kindness and power. While asking Chen Junchong to use normal means to persuade farmers, he also said, "After the winter harvest, the government promises to purchase and store unlimited amounts of corn as a base price of one tael of silver and two dan of sun-dried corn kernels."
Military rations".
(Note: Corn planted in late summer takes about four months to grow and will be harvested in winter. The yield is slightly lower than that of corn planted in late spring.)
Relevant commitments were distributed in every county and township, and were announced at Shenming Pavilions everywhere to make sure the people knew about them.
During this process, Zhu Shuren also inevitably asked the work team to go to the countryside to publicize the permanent tenancy law that he had already implemented in Huguang.
He advised the people to pay attention to protecting cultivated land when farming, to top-dress fertilizer every year, and to maintain water conservancy. He emphasized that the government would severely punish unruly people who engage in destructive farming and evil gentry who extort land rents in exchange for good land.
Of course, Zhu Shuren did not just talk empty talk and only use words to promote. Instead, every county would find faults and pick out a few bad examples, arrest them and chop them down directly, and show them to the public with official punishments.
In troubled times, heavy codes are used. In order to change folk customs and eliminate long-standing evils as quickly as possible, there is no way to kill a few people.
During this month and a half of running-in, Zhu Shuren's originally immature legal provisions on permanent tenant rights were further checked and improved.
The law is like this. It is impossible to make perfect laws just by slapping your head on the forehead or relying on foresight of future laws. The law always has its rigidities. Only by correcting problems in a timely manner after the pilot is discovered can it be better adjusted.
, adapted to the people.
After fine-tuning in the closed "special zone experimental field" of Hanzhong, Zhu Shuren's law of permanent tenant rights can basically be summarized into the following core spirits:
"The imperial court protects the people's permanent lease rights to the land. As long as a person cultivates the land well, topdresses the land every year, and participates in the maintenance of irrigation and water conservancy facilities in the township. Then the landlord who leases the land to him cannot ask the tenant to change the land.
Even if you own land, you can’t raise the rent.”
"On the basis of protecting farmers' peace of mind in production, the rights of landlords are not completely unprotected. The land lease contract has a lease term of twenty years, and no increase in rent is allowed under any circumstances within twenty years.
Twenty years later, if the tenant dies of old age and the land is inherited or divided, the lease is allowed to be re-signed and the rent can be adjusted as appropriate. If the tenant does not die of old age, he can continue to farm according to the original lease until he dies of old age, which will remain unchanged for the rest of his life.
.
In addition, if the landlord wants to increase the rent, he must bear the burden of proof to prove that the tenant has repeatedly failed to participate in the local water conservancy maintenance corvee for many years, and has repeatedly cultivated the land without fertilizing it for many years. If there are no such bad deeds, even if the land is inherited and the contract is exchanged, the rent will not be increased.
"
Zhu Shuren's approach is basically the same as that of later generations, "after renting a shop to open a shop, the operator cannot increase the rent unless the landlord leaves."
And considering the characteristics of the times, today is still a feudal society. Zhu Shuren's decision is obviously more humane than the Japanese of later generations - after all, Japan of later generations is a capital-focused society with economic growth and inflation. If there is no increase in inflation for decades or hundreds of years,
Rent and the landlord's income may become worthless after many years.
However, there was obviously no widespread economic growth in feudal society. Basically, the per capita GDP was cyclical for two thousand years, and there was no inflation. In the Han Dynasty, a stone of grain cost a few hundred dollars, but in the Ming Dynasty, it was still a few hundred dollars in normal times.
Therefore, "as long as the other party is a good citizen who protects the sustainability of the land, the landlord is not allowed to increase the rent," and the landlord's income will not depreciate.
Of course, some readers may think, "This kind of operation has not made much progress. Didn't the Ming Dynasty also have 'Tianpi Tiangu'? Didn't the tenancy rights also have long-term protection and even inheritance? It has nothing to do with the strict legislation of permanent tenancy rights."
What a big difference.”
But thinking this way can only be said to be a superficial understanding of ancient legal history.
It is true that the Ming Dynasty had Tianpi Tiangu, but to give an inappropriate example, the protective effect of that thing is the same as that in the "Company Law" of later generations: "When the shareholders of a limited company want to transfer their equity, the internal shareholders of the company, for example,
The terms "outsiders enjoy the right of first refusal under the same conditions" are about the same strength.
In fact, when a company's equity is traded, if a small shareholder feels bullied by a large shareholder and wants to transfer the equity and introduce a rival to audit the accounts, how can it be possible for you to have the opportunity to do so "under the same conditions"?
When the company is valued at 100 million, 10% of the small shares have to be sold, and the major shareholder offers 10 million. The small shareholder can definitely get an external competitor to offer 20 million, and the one with the highest price gets it. At this time, the so-called "under the same conditions"
"First purchase" is meaningless at all. The seller will not let you have the opportunity to buy something with exactly the same conditions.
The previous Ming Dynasty landlords dealt with the Tianpi Tiangu system in a similar way. He would not directly ask for illegal deprivation of tenants' tenancy rights. He would only tell you that the rent will be increased when the age is up.
If you don't want to go up, there will be a newcomer next to you who is willing to go up. Either the tenants will follow suit and promise to increase the rent, or there will be some way to prevent you from continuing, or you can find another land with the same area and seemingly similar surface conditions, and take care of it.
The land is given away to those who pay more and are more willing to be exploited.
Therefore, the radical solution still depends on "as long as the parties concerned apply fertilizer and participate in water conservancy maintenance on time, the landlord will never have the right to increase the land rent."
Of course, Zhu Shuren's move must have advantages and disadvantages. The landlords did not suffer a total loss in this reform, but also made a profit, because they did not increase the rent, but they could "from now on, the tenants will have perseverance and no longer destroy the fields."
"Benefits in the medium and long term.
The real losers in this reform are the pure refugees who want to flee to other places to rent land.
Because the original biggest competitive advantage of the refugees was that they could withstand a higher degree of servitude. Other local tenant farmers who could survive may have been accustomed to four citizens and six citizens, or a 50-50 split.
But when the refugees first come here and want to rent land, they may be willing to directly accept the 30% to 70% rent, and 70% of it belongs to the landlord. The refugees have always relied on this kind of competitiveness to squeeze out a little bit of the local tenants' share, and find a piece of land in the cracks to rent first.
.
This is like the new arrivals of later generations who have no skills in Beipiao and Shanghai Piao. It is often easier to accept 996/007. If the locals are unable to get involved, they will take the initiative to get involved, so they can squeeze out some job opportunities and ensure that they do not starve to death.
Let’s wait until Beihu gets a firm foothold.
Now Zhu Shuren has enacted legislation to forcibly prohibit land rent increases, which is equivalent to preventing the refugees from lowering their social status to improve their competitiveness.
Just like the Swedish labor law in later generations forcibly prohibits overtime work, those employees who have no skills and are just willing to do 996 will lose their competitiveness——
Later in 2015, there was a classic case of a once-famous streaming music platform in Sweden called Spotify. Several Chinese programmers they hired maliciously and illegally worked overtime without telling the boss (that is, the company and supervisors told
They stopped working overtime and worked slowly. They also pretended to sneak back to the company to work overtime after work, and were caught by the big data surveillance of the labor inspection agency). They were then arrested and detained, and the company was severely punished. What happened later
I have been afraid to hire Chinese programmers for quite some time.
When the court has set a minimum wage, if you employ people below this wage, it is directly against the law, and you will be caught and caught.
…
Chen Junchong, who was educated in Confucius and Mencius, was of course very uncomfortable with Zhu Shuren's strict legislation and drastic measures to set various "government-guided prices and government price limits" for economic operations.
Moreover, Zhu Shuren's current approach can already be called "domineering". How can he, a governor, speak for himself on the local level with this kind of reform?
Chen Junchong considered that his intentions were not bad, so he tactfully advised him that the government should not have too much control over matters that are beneficial to the public, and that the people should discuss and deal with them on their own.
He also cited the lesson that "Wang Mang also banned land sales, regulated the currency system, and made all kinds of troubles. In the end, he failed to solve the problem of the poor having no place to stand in the late Western Han Dynasty, and the country was subjugated." He felt that politicians should be gentle on the economy.
Rule by doing nothing.
Zhu Shuren also knew that this man was just ignorant and had no moral problems, so he did not embarrass him. He said, "In troubled times, heavy codes are used. At this point, if we don't protect the bottom price of the poor people's lives, it will be too late by the time they are kidnapped by thieves."
Revealed directly.
At this time, if you don't use the reason of "overstepping your authority" to fight against him, then you can win over and unite.
Zhu Shuren acted so vigorously and resolutely, and of course he encountered some resistance. After all, the wealthy gentry in Hanzhong were not completely wiped out by Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai a few years ago, and a small group still remained.
Some of these people were not known for raising land rents and forcing farmers to engage in destructive farming, and the butcher's knife was not struck on their heads at first.
But Zhu Shuren took it step by step, and wanted to enact local reforms to enact a permanent ban on unconditional rent increases. These people also realized that something was wrong and wanted to resist - after all, they had rarely raised rents in the past, and they would forever lose the power to increase rents unconditionally in the future.
, the gap here is still huge.
Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of the lean years to annex land and increase the conditions for exploitation?
So these people used the laws of the Ming Dynasty, the ancestral system of Emperor Taizu, and even made various excuses to obstruct it.
Of course, Zhu Shuren was not polite and punished him with a few more thorns.
A very few of them even dared to threaten Zhu Shuren, saying, "There are people in my family in the imperial court in Beijing, which elders and ministers are distant relatives/old friends of our family." They reminded Zhu Shuren that "the governor is only temporary."
, in the future the big bosses in Beijing will be freed up, and sooner or later you will have to pay the price for your misbehavior here!"
As soon as these words were said, Zhu Shuren immediately arrested these people in the name of "interfering in local administration, pretending to be acquainted with others, and slandering certain ministries and departments in central Beijing, and the reputation of the cabinet ministers."
"How can Mr. Zhou Ge, Xu Butang, and Zhang Butang have old friends like you? Don't think that you can get away with it just because the sky is high in Hanzhong and the emperor is far away."
Then just pick some typical ones and kill them. If the act of "false identification" involves the whole family and the whole family comes forward to protest, then the whole family will be killed!
After killing a dozen or so families, two or three in each county, the matter was settled.
Everyone in Hanzhong realized that the governor-general with the surname of Guo was definitely trying to kill thieves. To resist now would be to seek death. It would be better to wait until Guanzhong is pacified and the road out of Sichuan is smooth, then rush to Beijing and then sue this Zhushu man.
It’s not too late for the royal decree!
A good man will not suffer immediate losses. Now that Hanzhong is isolated by bandits, why should he die in vain at this juncture?
As everyone knows, Zhu Shuren dared to do this because he was sure that these people would never be able to contact the old cabinet ministers in Beijing.
In Zhu Shuren's eyes, the high-ranking civil servants in Beijing were all dead.
Even if they dare to surrender to Li Zicheng in the future and survive for the time being, Zhu Shuren will not allow these people to return as slaves of the three surnamed family slaves after the liberation of the north.
Intruders will be short of scholars, but the orthodox court will never be short of scholars. Killing one group will bring another group to serve as officials, and it does not require high-level professional bureaucratic skills - the imperial examination does not test specific professional management skills.
Technological talents may need to be cherished. Management positions can be filled one after another at any time and will not be interrupted.
Who doesn't want to be an official? During Zhu Yuanzhang's period, he killed so many officials, but he could still find countless people who were willing to become officials.
…
This iron-fisted and iron-blooded push continued for a month and a half. By August, the soldiers and civilians of Hanzhong had quickly overcome the pain period and began to realize the benefits of Guoxingye's rule.
At least now, no one among the common people dares to cheat. They are asked to participate in water conservancy maintenance, and they all do it obediently. After one and a half months of growth, the corn they planted is in good condition.
After corn is planted, you can usually see sprouts sprouting from the ground in less than ten days. In about a month, the corn seedlings will begin to joint and turn into hard and straight stalks, which are only softer than sugar cane.
Once this step has been reached, although the local farmers have never grown corn, they have at least seen sugar cane and know that there is no problem with the growth of this new crop.
Farmers are the ones who believe what they see. Seeing with their own eyes that this crop can continue to grow even though the amount of irrigation is so scarce, everyone believed it. They knew that this thing really uses very little water and is very suitable for the drought in Chongzhen.
Around Shaanxi in successive years.
The farmers' confidence and enthusiasm are even higher. They work hard every day and wait for the harvest in two and a half months until the end of October.
Just when Hanzhong's civil affairs and military preparations were getting on track, the princes and princes sent by the imperial court to announce the decree finally came to Hanzhong from Chongqing.
However, those victims of the Hanzhong gentry who were looking forward to re-establishing contact with the Beijing court may be disappointed.
[To be honest, I have been reading books recently to catch up on updates, switch sources, read aloud with many sounds, and it is available on both Android and Apple.]
Because when the prince and his father-in-law were far away in the Golden Ox Road, Zhu Shuren had already set his sights on the other party in advance. Every move of the imperial envoy and the speed of his daily schedule were all followed by Zhu Shuren.
Therefore, it was impossible for Wang Gonggong to see the actual changes that had taken place in Hanzhong in the past month and a half when he arrived in Nanzheng.
He could only see what Zhu Shuren asked him to see, those staged things.
Zhu Shuren will also continue to act as an unparalleled loyalist and actively prepare for the northern expedition from Hanzhong to Guanzhong, which shows that he has been sharing the worries of Chongzhen.